Growing market share, a cutting edge browser and a behemoth to beat - these are exciting days for FireFox fans. After months (for some years) of alpha releases, the efforts of the masses are paying off big.
Now the work is moving past the programmers to the early adopters - us. And how we carry the torch will set a precedent to other young Open Source Projects.
Posted on SpreadFirefox.com
Open Source is proving its superiority as a software development model. In Open Source programming, the community takes ownership and provides an unstoppable source of fixes and improvements. This yields a better product.
So, how do we leverage the power of Open Source and the community to execute a marketing campaign?
First of all, this week has been a busy one, but it is only the beginning. As FireFox improves, so must our marketing. As for the nuts and bolts of how, let’s take some cues from the effort to date:
Power comes from the community. The individual strengths of each of contributer builds a diverse and capable group. SpreadFirefox.com is a great place to register your skills with the group. In fact, I’d use the profile to specify what you plan to offer to the project.
As we participate in various activities, we need to provide upstream feedback. Marketing is a two-way channel. So if your sister isn’t interested in FireFox because she doesn’t think it works with Yahoo! Mail, that needs to be sent back to the group so we can address it. This can be done in the forums.
Every community needs some kind of structure and rewards system in place. Just as it is a badge of honor to have contributed to the Linux kernel, the points system on SpreadFirefox.com allows all kinds of contributers to build rank in this community. Don’t miss out on opportunities to build your credits with your time or money.
Leadership is a special challenge with an ad-hoc army of volunteers. Credit should be given to those who have to coordinate these efforts into a campaign. Ideas have to be filtered by popularity, potential and practicality and unfortunately not all ideas can be incorporated or executed.
So, eyes are on us. Soon we’ll know if the spirit of volunteerism and power of Open Source are enough to launch a global software product. The fire is already burning.
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September 23rd, 2004 at 10:36 pm
Good going Brian. You have some good ideas. I beleive and hope the fire will become a huge blaze.
Tim